Pace Law School alum Pete Harrison has been in the news as he fights to expose the practices of Duke Energy which discharged toxic wastewater into rivers in North Carolina. The utility company has said the release of the water, which contains heavy metals and other pollutants, was part of its “routine maintenance” plan. Harrison, an attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance, has called the discharge “a federal crime.”

“To label the secret, unmitigated, intentional discharges of untold amounts of highly toxic wastewater as ‘routine maintenance’ is beyond ludicrous — and it is a federal crime,” Harrison is quoted as saying in “The New York Times.”